One Life
by elle.writes
Summary: Two mausoleums were constructed after Anthony Edward Stark's death. One was public, placed in what was colloquially known as Avengers' Square, and the second was private and a different man sat buried in it. There were no flowers here, no homage, no acknowledgement, just the private death of another man, a man consumed completely by Tony's memory.
1. Prelude

**Title:** One Life

**Author:** ELLE

**Pairings/Warnings:** Tony/Pepper, Tony/Bruce, explicit language, graphic depictions of death – although this is not a death fic despite all appearances, bad science, my usual heaping helping of angst, violence and gore, some timeline variance from MCU canon

**Notes:** The original idea for this fic was inspired by a work done in another fandom titled "Far too Young to Die" by Miss Murdered. I never read the whole thing, only the rough draft of the first chapter, but I immediately adored the concept and still remember it fondly over a year after initial exposure. Although I am sure that she will never read this note, it is important to me to acknowledge someone who had such a profound impact on me as a writer.

Also a special thanks to my lovely girlfriend for her encouragement, advice, and patience as I made my way through this beast.

* * *

_I keep going to the river to pray  
__'Cause I need something that can wash out the pain  
__And at most I'm sleeping all these demons away  
__But your ghost, the ghost of you  
__It keeps me awake_

Ghost – Ella Henderson

* * *

**1: **_Prelude_

Two mausoleums were constructed after Anthony Edward Stark's death. One was public, placed in what was colloquially known as Avengers' Square, a boastful monument of sculpted marble with the vengeful archangel Raguel guarding the door, wings spread and wielding a sword, like a testament to the life of the man inside, taken far too soon. Flowers were piled outside the door for weeks but then graffiti also marred the stone and was washed away again and again – the varied and heated opinions of the hero's character drawing out visitors from all over the city and beyond. Even those that couldn't make it still watched the billionaire known as Iron Man's last pilgrimage on this earth broadcast across every news network in the world as he was laid to rest inside.

The second mausoleum erected in his honor was private and a different man sat buried in it, only two sets of eyes ever falling upon it's existence. This mausoleum was only a hundred feet away, in the basement of Avengers' Tower. There were no flowers here, no homage, no acknowledgement, just the private death of another man, a man consumed completely by Tony's memory.

Bruce sat bathed in the soft glow of computer monitors, hunched over as he reviewed the analysis of the last few lines of changed code. Sitting there alone he failed to draw any parallel between the decomposing body of Tony Stark to his own starving and neglected form, both locked away in darkness. Failed to think about much of anything other than the project before him, displayed across three over-sized monitors, code he'd written and rewritten hundreds of times over the past three months surrounding him as effectively as the mahogany coffin entombing his friend.

Tony had always been the stronger programmer. If only Bruce hadn't let him die.

The quiet pad of feet across the floor alerted Bruce that someone else was in the room – but he hardly cared. Only one person ever came to visit him down here and that was Pepper. He wasn't really quite sure why. Well, it was technically her tower, he supposed, and he had taken up something of a permanent residence there. But still, he had expected Steve before Pepper, but according to her Tony's death and Bruce's subsequent disappearance had fractured the team. Steve went back to SHIELD HQ; Sam accepted some contract position. Natasha and Clint theoretically went their separate ways and disappeared again on a more permanent basis. Thor apparently still came to this world to help Steve, at least he still showed up on the news, but Bruce didn't have any concept of the frequency of those appearances – nor did he care. He had one singular focus since they placed Tony's body in that mausoleum and he did not stray from it.

He heard the soft disapproving hiss of breath as Pepper noted the food she'd left some hours ago that he hadn't touched. That wasn't always the case, sometimes he would eat enough to sustain himself a few more hours, but he was so close now that it didn't matter whether he ate or not. He hardly felt hunger anymore anyway.

But he could feel her hovering just outside the range of his personal space – nagging, like an insect he wouldn't be able to swat away. Knew she had brought him something else to eat as he caught her setting a new tray down in place of the old one, sliding it carefully into his reach. He didn't look over though, didn't reach for it. It didn't matter. This world was so temporary.

The silence was tense between them and it distracted his thought process. Bruce knew she had something she wanted to say, but just like always she couldn't just _say_ it. He wasn't sure if that was a feature of her personality – surely not, she successfully ran a multibillion dollar corporation – or if he had morphed into some even more unapproachable monster than he had been in all the previous years of his life. It wasn't a thought he really wanted to contemplate the answer to, although he knew. Vaguely he wondered what he looked like. The fingers of one hand scratched absently at his beard. He hadn't worn a beard in... shit. Not since he taught briefly in Qatar. He guessed he didn't really want to know what he looked like.

"Yes?" he asked at last, knowing that if he didn't say anything Pepper would stand there indefinitely – or at least long enough to become ridiculous before she left without saying anything at all – and Tony wouldn't have wanted that. And he didn't dislike Pepper anyway – after all, he was doing this as much for her as he was himself. He was just so close now that he didn't really feel like wasting time with meaningless conversation either.

But Pepper didn't know that. She didn't understand. He had to be patient. Deep breath in, let all the anger out.

"How long are you going to do this to yourself?"

Bruce's fingers found the bridge of his nose as he sighed. This again. He'd thought he'd stopped this line of questioning weeks ago but apparently not. It was his own fault, he was too slow. If he had solved the issue with how to stabilize a quantum field earlier then they wouldn't even be having this conversation.

"I'm almost done," he replied, which was the truth. "Then I promise, none of this will have happened."

Pepper made a sound that was some mixture between a sigh, a whine, and a huff of indignance. It was so bizarre and so unlike her that Bruce actually turned to look at her for the first time in weeks just to make sure she was okay. It took his eyes a moment to adjust after staring at the screens in the dark for so long, but as they did his brows furrowed. It appeared that she had been crying.

"None of this is your fault," she nearly pleaded and Bruce felt confused by her sudden passion. They'd had this conversation several times since Tony's death, but she'd never been moved to tears before.

"Pepper –" he started, his patience for this conversation immediately non-existent. How was it that she didn't understand? He wasn't going to let Tony die such a meaningless death. Not Tony. Not again.

"He will just make the same decisions again," she quickly interrupted, as though she were some authority on Tony's decision making process. Maybe she could speak for him with regards to Stark Industries, but Bruce refused to believe Tony couldn't be persuaded to make a different decision, if only he'd had the chance. After all – she may have been his lover, but Bruce had been his best friend.

"You don't know that," he replied simply as he turned back to the monitors, unwilling to be drug down into this argument again.

"And if you kill yourself?" she asked, strain in her voice and Bruce paused.

He thought about the casket, the warm brown wood, the warped reflection of his face as he looked down on it, the way it felt slick under his fingers and the way tears pooled in little droplets on the lacquered surface before they slid down the curvature of the case. He thought about the way his knees buckled as he fell against it, wishing he could lay down beside him, or take his place – the way it should have been. How Steve had to physically carry him away because he couldn't force himself to stand, the weight of his guilt crushing him entirely. He thought about how the whole city mourned Tony's death and the way Pepper stood there and delivered a flawless eulogy, calm and serene, her eyes rimmed in red as she spoke to the future Tony would have wanted – the future he would never see.

"So what?" Bruce muttered with a glare shot back over his shoulder after the impatient click of Pepper's tongue.

"The world still needs you," she argued and he sighed, turning the chair to face her, his elbow on the table and his jaw resting on his knuckles, looking over his glasses at her in disbelief.

"The world doesn't need a monster like me," he replied, completely devoid of emotion.

"The Hulk –" she started, but that was it. The apathy he felt was quickly replaced by rage.

"_I'm not talking about the Hulk_!"

Barely contained anger snapped with every word and she took a step back, shocked into silence. Bruce recognized that kind of fear. What's going to happen now? Was he going to snap? "Hulk out?" Why did everyone always assume that the Hulk was the monster here? The Hulk was just a manifestation of the monster that was Bruce Banner.

He took a deep breath and unclenched his fists, feeling his heart rate drop. He was almost done. There was no use getting worked up now. He might not have been able to save his mother, but he _could_ save Tony. He _would_ save Tony.

No one else deserved to die because of him.

"I'm sorry," he apologized as he turned back to the computer screens, shielding her from himself.

His thinking was warped and he knew it but – everything he cared about was taken from him eventually. Of course his thinking was warped.

"Please – leave. I'm nearly done."

There was a long moment of silence between them. He could practically hear her hesitation. It made his skin crawl; the distance between them some physical thing. He didn't even know what she was doing down here. He didn't even know why she cared.

"When should I come back to... see?"

The hesitation, the unasked question, the sound of her swallowing hard around what she was asking was all right there, right on the surface. He chuckled. It was a little sad, a little sick.

"I don't really think that's going to be a concern," he muttered darkly. "I'm using the prototype two arc reactor as a power source. If this doesn't work, most of the east coast won't exist."

Bruce blocked out her gasp, her prickling anger. It was selfish, yes, that was how she would see it – her and her cold graphs and charts and dollar signs. There was a reason S.I. managed not to tank after Tony's death – she was a phenomenal statistician with an incredibly level-head. And he wanted to argue that, wanted to yell at her, make sure she understood that he was doing this for her, too. That she would never have to see her fiance _die_... but then. He didn't want to know what her response would be to that, either. Tony... Tony deserved the best of everything. Bruce needed to believe that she was the best thing.

And maybe she was. She surprised him and spared him the lecture, instead walking over to sit down on the table next to him, glancing over the monitors with a hint of disdain. The question she asked was one he wouldn't have expected – not from her.

"So you really believe this will work, then?"

He was buoyed by her confidence, her understanding that he wouldn't attempt this without that belief, her realization that he wouldn't be dissuaded.

"Absolutely," Bruce answered without hesitation, their eyes meeting for a moment. They were both sad, hers and his, both frustrated by the position they were in. And maybe – Bruce thought, hoped – maybe she understood that he was doing this for her, too.

"I don't know how you'll convince him," she sighed, rubbing at the base of her nose with one perfectly manicured hand, brushing away her bangs. "He cared so much about you – but that doesn't mean he'd listen..."

It felt like a punch to the gut to hear her say that and it took everything in him to maintain his limited composure. He ran a hand back through his hair, tried to steady the shaking in his fingers. If Tony had known it meant his own death, he wouldn't have come out with them. He cared about Pepper more. He wouldn't have left her. The rock on her left hand that she still wore was a testament to that. Bruce had to believe that.

He decided there was no good answer to that and he kept his mouth shut. It was inconsequential. Whatever he had to say to Tony, he would say. He would tell him he hated him if that was what it took, destroy their friendship so long as he would live – fine. Bruce could take it. He could take any outcome other than this.

"So what will happen?" she asked after she realized he wasn't going to respond. Her voice was tentative, hesitant, as though the conversation was a roach she stepped on and she knew it was going to be messy but she just had to lift her foot and look. "Isn't this one of those things you see in the movies? Won't you create, what is it, a time paradox trying to talk to yourself?"

The corner of Bruce's mouth tilted upward. There were times he understood what Tony saw in her – and this was one of them. Tony would've gotten off explaining specifics to a willing audience – Bruce, unfortunately, did not.

"There's a pretty damn good chance I'll kill myself," he confessed as he ran a hand down his tired face. "But if I don't, there shouldn't be two of me. I'm not going to say it's impossible because, well, I'm the living definition of 'freak accident.' But hopefully I'll just rejoin the old timeline with the knowledge I've acquired since his..."

Bruce could never bring himself to say it. He'd thought it a million times but to verbally acknowledge that Tony was _dead_...

"'Hopefully?' So if you don't remember building any of this – this thing?" she asked, gesturing across the entirety of the lab, taken over by a mass of lasers and cables and computers. "You'll just be doomed to repeat everything all over again – right?"

"Right." He met her stare without remorse. He would literally halt time, melt it down to a repetitious few months for all eternity if it meant he ever had the slightest chance of bringing Tony back.

Pepper sighed as she stood, the finality of Bruce's singular response effectively closing the conversation. But she paused and took one last look at him, a hint of pity or maybe, Bruce thought, some kind of empathy, of understanding flitted across her face and her mouth tightened for a moment, her fists too.

Her mouth opened but nothing came out and so she closed it again, swallowed, and started over. Bruce had rarely seen her so uncomposed.

"I know it won't make a difference for me," she began, slow and careful like each word was very important and so he listened closely. "But if I had the chance to do it again, I would make sure he understood how much I loved him."

Bruce swallowed hard, emotion he'd carefully kept buried for so long too close to the surface anymore. At least here was the proof he'd needed that Pepper was the best thing, that this would be worth it.

He didn't know what to say – worse, he didn't know that he'd be able to speak without his voice betraying him – but Pepper just smiled that tight little smile, gave him an awkward pat on the arm as she leaned over to grab his old, untouched tray, and left without saying anything else. And then, he was alone again.

Loneliness was nothing that Bruce ever thought would bother him as intimately as it did now. But he missed Tony's teasing voice correcting his mistakes and questioning his judgment, missed Tony making them break to eat and ordering whatever exotic food Bruce was craving, missed Tony's constant companionship in the now empty lab. He stared at the code in front of him and sighed. It was easy to imagine Tony hovering over his shoulder, hands pressing down on the back of his seat, chastising him for doubting his work.

But there was a lot more at stake here than a lab disaster or a couple months of wasted programming. Not for him but then he was so used to caring more about the effects of his actions on others than he was himself that still, he hesitated. Though only for a minute because truthfully he couldn't go on like this. If he couldn't fix this... then he was better off dead. This experience taught him nothing if not that he couldn't trust himself not to get involved with people again. And that every time he did, it only ended badly.

Without any fanfare he compiled the program one last time, instructing JARVIS to run it on his command, and he stood, body aching with neglect. Soon, though, it would all be over.

The lab was a mess. Bruce acknowledged that as he crossed the room to stand amongst the rubble surrounding the makeshift platform he'd created, lasers aimed downwards towards it, cables as thick as his forearms running straight to the arc reactor that had been intended to power the tower several rooms over.

For a moment he wondered how his friend would feel about such a bastardization of his tech, a cobbled together mess of machinery, nothing like the sleek design that always seemed to come so effortlessly to Tony. Even his prototypes were leagues beyond anything Bruce could've put together on a first try and he sighed. It was easy to hide the personal nature of this experiment behind the fact that he had taken such genius and talent from the world – but it was personal, even if he didn't really want to admit it.

Carefully he stepped up on the platform, stared at the lasers, took a deep breath. Whatever happened, either way, it would be for the best, he reminded himself as he tried to calm the nausea in his gut.

In a fit of nervous apprehension he found himself doing something he'd rarely done in the three months since Tony's death – he spoke to JARVIS.

"Do you think this will work?"

He hated the way his own voice sounded, thin and needy, betraying to himself how nervous and desperate he really was.

"It's difficult to determine an exact figure but the probability is quite low, sir," JARVIS replied, not helping the arrhythmic thump of Bruce's heart.

"Am I making a mistake?" he whispered, knowing it didn't matter but just wanting something, some support. It was pathetic how dependent he had become on Tony's companionship over the past year.

"I cannot say, Master Bruce," JARVIS replied, ever smooth and just a little insolent. "I only know of one person who would have been foolish enough take this chance."

Bruce blinked as his mind processed the statement, having never been called foolish by JARVIS before, at least not when compared to –

And then the realization hit him and he barked out a harsh laugh, warped and echoing weirdly in the lab, the first time he had laughed since Tony's death.

Tony would take the chance. Tony wouldn't hesitate.

The grin hadn't faded much as he took one less glance around the basement hole that had been his home for the past three months. Either way, this world was only temporary. This nightmare would be over soon.

"JARVIS?" he called out, strong and confident and seemingly utterly out of place in the tomb he had built from his sorrow. "Run the program."

"Certainly, sir," JARVIS replied as Bruce's grin widened.

The computer screens popped up voltage counters and Bruce closed his eyes to the telltale hum of energy filling the room as the lasers charged. It would only be a moment and then the pain of this reality would be gone. And the last thing he remembered, before he was erased from this existence, was a brief flash of light so bright he felt blinded beneath his eyelids.


	2. Scene One

**2:** _Scene One_

* * *

The pain was excruciating. It was everything Bruce could do to stop the Hulk from manifesting to protect himself from the searing sensation tearing up through his body and into his brain. But then – then he was the Hulk or at least he was feeling all his bones and ligaments and muscles stretching and growing and he couldn't – FUCK. Reality hit him like a ton of bricks and that hurt more than the pain of being ripped through time into a transformation.

Here he was, one of the worst hours in his pathetic fucking life, and he was stuck rewatching it without the ability to really _do_ anything about it. It was something he hadn't taken into account in his desperation to make this work and now he was going to have to watch from the proverbial back seat, screaming in Hulk's head, because he didn't go far enough back in time to do a damned thing.

It was like the scene out of a bad western gone wrong. They were on the top of the Price building – a highrise in the middle of the city – alone but for Steve, Tony, himself, the building's titular CEO as a hostage, and a mutant with a serious inferiority complex going by Mister Electric. Never could give 'em points for creativity. At least this guy didn't try to rock any kind of costume – he looked every inch of the beaten down middle-manager he likely was: ill-fitted slacks with cheap imitation leather shoes, a bad haircut that only highlighted his middle-aged balding, and some ugly horn-rimmed glasses.

Hulk grunted with impatience and Bruce remembered his feeling of disdain well, thinking – as much as the Hulk ever really "thought" – that this was not a worthy opponent. But he was wrong and there was no real way to communicate that to him. In the same way the Hulk only rested under his skin, a feeling of impending doom and madness, he only existed in the back of Hulk's brain, buzzing around with irritating complexity.

Steve had been trying to argue the man down from dropping his hog-tied boss a hundred and ten stories off the side of the building while Tony was preping himself for a quick dive and mid-air rescue and Hulk was watching the lights in the surrounding buildings flicker as Mister Electric's jaw worked, muscles clenching and unclenching. Hulk felt the same premonition that Bruce knew to be reality – and maybe now Hulk had some inkling of what was about to happen because own big fists twisted against the roof, feeling it give beneath those monstrous hands.

"People like you _never_ understand!" Mister Electric's voice wavered as he called out across the twenty foot gap between them and Hulk could practically feel the energy accumulating around him, his nearly animalistic sense telling him to get ready, creating an uncomfortable discord as Bruce's mind flared in anticipation, knowing what was about to happen. "Everyone loves you. You don't know what it's like to try and try and try and never get anywhere, to never have anyone care about you!"

Even the Hulk snorted at that, irritation rattling him as he tore at the concrete, tired of the talking but waiting at the command of "Flag Man" – aka Steve. It was a ridiculous statement to make in Bruce's presence, his intimate knowledge of what it was like to be unwanted and unloved painful even through the dullness of the Hulk's protective shield on his consciousness. Hulk's eyes shifted to Tony, Bruce's feelings bleeding into his psyche. No one loved him – and the only man who came close didn't love him in anything like they way Bruce wanted. Or at least, he wouldn't let himself. Not in this life. And if that wasn't a testament to how wrong that statement was, well...

Steve tried to speak but his words died when Mister Electric threw the CEO off of the building, Tony whizzing off to his rescue as the mutant turned to face them, squaring his shoulders, hands balling into fists at his sides.

"But I can make you _hurt_ – !" he declared, gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes tight as he released a colossal amount of discharged energy.

Hulk flinched and ducked before the attack came thanks to Bruce's foresight, but it wasn't aimed at him – not specifically. There was a smack like a tremendous thunder clap and the whole building shook as energy swept through him, causing a secondary jolt of intense pain not dissimilar to how it felt to be ripped through time except, this time, Hulk felt it too and thrashed around until his nerves stopped screaming and he was focused on the singular desire to tear apart the source of the pain he'd just experienced.

But Hulk hesitated as a sob that shook Hulk to his core was emitted from the place where Bruce resided in his brain because although Hulk hadn't realized it, and wouldn't, not until Steve took over once more and was apprehending the spent and useless Mister Electric – Tony was dying. And instead of grabbing the limp vestige of a man and slamming him through the roof and into the hundred and tenth floor of his former office building the way he had before, Hulk rushed to the edge of the building and peered over, looking for Tony instead – laying on the cracked concrete where he fell, the CEO laying unconscious on top of him.

Steve still moved forward, mission focused, but Hulk forgot about him completely as he jumped off the building, smashing his hand through the side of it to slow his descent, landing in front of Tony and growling, a deep guttural and wounded sound from his chest. Bruce could never really tell if Hulk's affection for Tony was born of Bruce's love echoing in his bones or Hulk's own genuine feelings for "Metal Man" himself – whatever ability to feel the Hulk possessed outside of anger – but it didn't matter. He was standing before him as one hulking, giant mountain of sorrow and he rolled the CEO off of Tony and gathered his broken suit in his own gargantuan arms.

"Hey buddy," came Tony's voice through his mask as Hulk breathed hot air over him, making his metal fog up and Bruce hated it, hated that he couldn't hold him in his own arms but at the same time he had to be thankful that Hulk had noticed and wasn't going to let Tony die alone. Again.

What Hulk didn't understand, what no one understood except for Tony at that moment and Bruce with the unfair advantage of having experienced this before, was that Mister Electric had accumulated all of the electricity from every power source in a radius of a mile or two – including Tony's arc reactor. And the discharge of that amount of electricity fried fucking everything in it's path – electrical wires, circuitry, overloading the nearest power plant causing a blackout that affected over half the country... and Tony's own suit melted under the strain. His arc reactor was completely depleted but all the casing had melted so that it was unable to be removed. It would take a team over forty eight hours to remove the iron man suit from his corpse so that he could be entombed with dignity in a charcoal-colored one of finely woven wool.

"Metal Man _hurt_," Hulk groaned, whipping his head back and forth in agitation, looking for something to attack but there was nothing. It was too late. Hulk couldn't help and Hulk couldn't stand that.

"Yeah, I'm hurt pretty bad," Tony admitted with a weak chuckle and Bruce could practically hear the the life fading out of him. "Tell Bruce there, if he can hear me, to study this. Actually pretty damn interesting what he did there, never thought I'd have to build the suit well enough to protect me from myself."

Hulk was confused by this, hearing Bruce's name and getting frustrated by the quick way Tony said the words – Bruce's words, words Hulk didn't understand. Bruce wanted to tell him to shut up. It was so unbearably frustrating to feel like crying and not be able to because you had no body, no form, just thoughts and a scene played through someone else's eyes.

"Shut up," Hulk said and Bruce wanted to laugh now through the tears – they were the same person, after all.

"Hey – this is my last chance. Gotta go out –" His words stopped abruptly and Bruce panicked as Hulk lifted him a little more, shaking him a bit, wanting to make him keep talking even though he'd just told him to shut up. Even the Hulk knew what silence meant.

"Just – just watch out for the team, hey?" Tony's voice was strained and Hulk was nodding dutifully, like a child, and Bruce hated every second of it. He wanted –

He knew he couldn't but he wanted to fucking _see_ Tony.

"Wish I could lift this damn visor," he offered weakly, his arm barely moving in the fried suit as he tried to lift it up and Bruce howled, as pathetic and animalistic as the Hulk himself within the corner of the monster's mind, knowing more intimately than he ever had before why that monster was how his anger and his fear chose to manifest itself.

So absorbed was he in his grief that it took a moment before Bruce realized the Hulk was wailing too, placing Tony gently in the concave crater of concrete he had landed in – so gentle, more gentle than Bruce thought he ever could be – before turning vicious eyes upward towards the man who had done this to him. And in the next second Bruce was lost to the strength of his emotion and Hulk was completely in control, tearing across the space between them, big hands and splayed fingers reaching, grabbing, constricting, climbing upwards, catapulting himself back onto the roof, ripping him away from Steve, big hands wrapped around his pathetic human form.

And Hulk lifted his body and slammed it into the roof, support beams bowing under his strength, Steve's frantic shouts falling on deaf ears as the Hulk lifted him again and again only to break his body once more on the composite steel. Tony had told him watch out for the team and Electric Man hurt Tony and Tony was the team so Electric Man must hurt too. It was a simple progression of thought and it didn't stop until there was nothing more than a bloody pulp of flesh pounded through the roof and into the next floor of the building

Hulk was breathing heavy, blood splattered across his face when he came to his limited senses, the disappointed eyes of Flag Man heavy across the distance as he looked down on him, blond hair whipping across his head from the blades of a SHIELD helicopter arriving on scene. In response Hulk was indignant and he snorted out his disgust until he looked back at the smear that had once been a man and the red looked like the red of – of Metal Man.

And for the first time ever Hulk reached back for Bruce and Bruce wasn't there because Bruce was nothing more than an unfathomable well of sorrow – and Hulk's fists hit the floor and his fists hit his chest and he howled long and loud and low until the whole world shook with the resonance of his pain.

This time – Bruce didn't attend the funeral, merely holed himself up to recreate the machine – better than before, to go back further than before. Strangely, despite being his only companion the first time through, this time Pepper never visited him once. Instead he was left with nothing more than the ghost of Tony in the lab, dragging him from his dreams and his nightmares alike to finish the time machine once more and try again.

This time – he was truly alone.

* * *

A/N: I beleive I forgot to mention that this will be updated on Mondays going forward and is nine chapters in total. Thanks for reading. =)


	3. Scene Two

**3:** _Scene Two_

* * *

When Bruce came to the second time he was sitting in his lab – his former lab and not the one he buried himself in in the basement – bowed over the desk in crippling pain. It was easier when he had slipped into his former reality as he was transitioning into the Hulk. The Hulk's regenerative power eased the pain but this – this was unbearable. It felt like his brain was being split in half. It felt like –

He swallowed, suddenly nauseous, sweating and shaking even though it shouldn't have been surprising. The amount of energy needed to transport him through time was obviously of a similar level to the amount of energy needed to create a physical split personality within him.

The pain of his fingernails digging into his arms brought him back and he tried to fight off the feeling of time travel and reorient himself with this time and place. There was no exact science to how far he could send himself back – there was only a rough guess. Hence why the first trip through he'd actualized at such an inconvenient moment. Theoretically, if he could find the exact position of the universe for the moment he wanted to return to as well as the moment he ran the program in then he could be more precise but –

He shook his head and grit his teeth, taking a deep breath and letting it out as he sat up, the residual effect of the time travel experience humming through his veins, momentarily displacing even the Hulk. Which was a disturbing experience but –

Fuck! He needed to think. The experience was distracting, sure, but –

He glanced around to refocus himself. The lab seemed to be in perfect order, the way it always was. There was a box of Chinese take out cold and abandoned to his right but that wasn't particularly uncommon. Bruce swiped his hand over the computer screen to reveal the date – the same day as the attack. It must've been that morning. The Chinese having been left overnight. He really needed to get better about that but –

It was like his very essence wanted to fall back into this existence with merely a whimper of deja vu and he had to fight to remember what he was doing here.

"Uh-oh – sleeping on the job eh?" Tony's voice was like fire in his veins and he shot upright, turning towards the door. "What do we pay you for?"

"I –" The words started and then was a response on the tip of his tongue and it was strange – like something wasn't right – like it was and yet it wasn't the right thing to say. Shit. He needed to push through this fog.

"Should've negotiated sleep into your contract." Tony leaned against the desk, flat hips and stomach right in Bruce's line of sight and impossible to avoid with the thin-cotton single-layer tees he insisted on wearing specifically to show it off. "Tough break – you look like you could really use some."

He was grinning and Bruce looked up into his eyes and his situational amnesia seemed even worse than before. There he was, his best friend, his crush, the man he loved, well and alive, as if nothing had ever happened because, well, it _hadn't_. And Bruce struggled to remember that it was only a matter of time before it _would_.

"Hey I –" Bruce started, stumbling, trying to figure out what he should say. Should he just blurt it all out, the whole thing, before he forgot? Would Tony even believe something that ridiculous?

Well. Ridiculous was subjective, Bruce supposed.

"You okay buddy?" Tony asked, doing that stupidly adorable thing he did with his eyebrows when he was genuinely concerned and fuck it was cheesy but Bruce would've been okay just to relive these few moments over and over and over again for the rest of his life. He didn't think he had before but now he realized just how he'd taken that smile for granted so many times, those casual jokes, those damn eyebrows and the brown eyes that sat beneath them.

"You're going to die." The words just fell straight out of his mouth when he opened it, unable to stop them any more than he could stop the quickening of his heart every time Tony walked into a room.

"Excuse me?" Tony went straight from sympathetic to shocked and clearly amused. "Look, I'll let you take a nap if I have to drag you to your room yourself – no death threats needed."

Bruce looked away, rested his elbows on the table and let his head fall into his hands, rubbing at his eyes underneath his glasses. This was going to go oh-so well.

"I built a time machine and came back to tell you that in hopes of avoiding it."

"Well, we all gotta go someday, right?" Tony joked, surprise fading into pure amusement and Bruce's frown deepened.

He removed his glasses and looked Tony dead in the eye. "I'm serious."

Tony chuckled but not much – one of the qualities Bruce always liked about him, never completely dismissing anything, always open to the truth. "Look, even if time travel were possible –"

"I'd prove it if I had the time but it's going to happen today," Bruce interrupted, not willing to deal with skepticism right now. The longer he let it go the more skeptical he knew he would become himself.

"First I'm going to die – now I'm going to die _today_?"

"Yes."

There was a moment where their eyes were locked, Tony feeling Bruce out, obviously still not totally convinced this wasn't some kind of prank, and Bruce not backing down. Finally, Tony looked away, laughing and scratching at his goatee a little, clearly not completely convinced but at least convinced that Bruce believed without a doubt in what he was saying anyway.

"Okay okay, so how is the dashing hero going to avoid death, then?" Tony said, still jokes but there was a serious undertone that was unmistakable.

"In about an hour, there's going to be a power fluctuation. You're going to get all pissy because 'nothing could possibly be wrong with your beautiful arc reactor' and –"

"There _isn't_ anything wrong with my beautiful arc reactor," Tony argued as Bruce took a breath and pinned him with a look for the interruption.

"_And_ –" he emphasized, "you're going to investigate and yes, there is nothing wrong with your beautiful arc reactor. There is however a mutant with the ability to source energy trying to bait you out there to kill you."

"And how exactly would he do that?"

"By drawing the energy from your personal arc reactor and frying your suit," Bruce explained, keeping his voice as steady as possible after having witnessed it twice.

"And what would happen if I just didn't show up?" Tony asked, voice hard. "Would the team be okay without me there? Would _you_ be okay?"

The door opened along with Bruce's mouth as he made to reply and the feeling of deja vu was back as Pepper walked in, him trailing her with his eyes and with the memories replaying in the back of his mind as she moved through the room in her soft white suit and patent red lipstick.

"There you boys are," she teased with a grin, leaning in to barely kiss Tony's cheek, red hair falling across her shoulder. "I looked for you in your office but I keep forgetting my fiance already has a husband he'd rather go visit."

Bruce cringed inwardly. The jokes were always said as though they were benign but he couldn't help but wonder if she didn't know, the way her eyes shifted and her smile dropped when she looked at him. Pepper was always too perceptive for her own good.

"Package deal," Tony teased back, feigning oblivious – the whole situation one big farce, the perpetually unacknowledged elephant in the room. "Two husbands for the price of one."

She just sighed and opened a portfolio pad with a stack of paper inside, asking him a few quiet questions Bruce didn't attempt to overhear and requesting a signature, which Tony dutifully supplied.

"Our meeting with Mister Richards of Venture United is in fifteen minutes so I'm going to need you to come with me and get ready," she told him as she snapped the portfolio closed.

Bruce could feel himself failing with every second and now Pepper was about to lure him away with a very real request while he fumbled with some bullshit about how Tony was going to die later in the day and he –

He couldn't think when Tony turned his eyes back towards him and smiled that warm, genuine smile that made him feel like for one tiny moment he was the center of Tony's universe. He hated how he'd been across the entire world and no where else seemed to compare.

"Don't worry," he said, as if that were all it took. "You know me. It doesn't matter what you say. There's nothing that would convince me not to join the team. I wouldn't leave you alone."

Bruce stared up at him with a panic stricken look to juxtapose Tony's self-assurance and he knew it was true. Even if Tony believed him, he wouldn't let any part of the team go out into a dangerous situation alone.

Pepper's eyes narrowed just a bit as she took a step away to indicate it was time for them to leave and Bruce wanted to say something – implore him not to go when the time came, to listen for once in his damn life, tell him that he cared too much to see him die again... But his throat was stuck and he couldn't make his mouth move. He just watched Tony walk out with Pepper, knowing that the next time he'd see him would be three hours from now as they headed out to the Price building.

And everything happened just as before – Tony didn't end up attending the meeting with Venture United because there were fluctuations in the readings from the arc reactor. Instead, he stayed behind and played in the basement trying to diagnose the problem. SHIELD contacted the Tower to say there was a belligerent mutant with CEO Cooper Price held hostage atop his own building. Bruce caught the beginning of a TV segment with a reporter in shiny lipgloss discussing the demands made by him – that he wanted the Avengers to just try to stop him. That he was a mutant, not simply the product of science, and that he was more powerful that anyone – even Tony Stark.

Then when they got on the scene it was the same story all over again. That there was nothing they could do to appease him. There was nothing he could do with money, with fame, that all he just wanted was to be loved by someone. That he would make them hurt.

The thunderclap. The feeling of his entire body being charged with electricity. The interruption in the beat of his heart. The moment he saw Tony from a hundred and ten stories down, smashed into concrete and dying – again.

It was so stupid – so fucking _stupid_. It wasn't like Tony was even _helping_. It wasn't as if his presence was somehow instrumental in saving someone else, in talking Mister Electric down. Hulk could just as easily save Cooper Price by grabbing him out of mid air the way he had done to Tony before. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say. The man pulled his heart right out of his chest and then killed him with it, without even needing to touch him. Tony simply didn't belong here. And as Hulk picked him up with his big green hands, he wondered if he would ever be able to convince Tony of that.

"Metal Man stupid," Hulk grunted out as he held him up, the repetitive scene doing a number even on the Hulk's limited intelligence and emotional capacity. "Metal Man should listen. Bruce say."

Tony chuckled weakly. "Yeah – I guess I shoulda. Stupid is kinda my thing big guy; Bruce was always smarter than me." His arm shifted that little bit, just like before, like he was reaching out to Hulk and wanted to touch him but his suit was so fried he just couldn't. "Wish I could lift this damn visor but... You should go help Steve."

Hulk shook his massive head as Bruce resigned himself to quietly falling apart in the back of his psyche, the explosive anguish of the previous experience not present this time in the face of his utter defeat.

"Not alone," Hulk said, holding him a little closer, like a big dumb kid with a doll and Bruce wanted to lay down and cry when he realized what Hulk meant – that he was reciprocating Tony's presence here, that he wouldn't let Tony be alone any more than Tony would let him be alone.

"Thanks, buddy," Tony whispered back, barely audible through his broken speaker box, a soft exhalation on his lips before he passed.

And Hulk didn't let the suit go for hours – not for Steve's pleading, not for SHIELD's demands. Not until Bruce had fallen so far away, hiding so deep within himself that he could no longer physically manifest that anger and he shrank back into Bruce, hunkered over and clutching that red and gold suit, never having felt more alone in his life.


	4. Scene Three

**4:** _Scene Three_

* * *

Bruce gasped against the pain as he came to, falling back against the elevator wall behind him, trying not to slide down it. For the number of times he was apparently going to have to experience this, he wished it was something he could become accustomed to.

He had been alone again, Pepper failing to visit him in the basement, and that was okay with him. This time, he was determined. This time, he had a plan. This time he had just wanted to get through building the machine as quickly as possible so that he might try again because this time he wasn't going to fail. He wasn't going to rely on convincing Tony of anything. He was going to take matters into his own hands, so to speak.

Still, it took him a moment before the fog cleared and he realized where he was, and then he fought down the pain so that he could appear lucid enough in front of Tony and Steve that he wouldn't be questioned. Still, he could see Tony looking at him skeptically from the corner of his eye as he regained composure.

"It's not that I care about cancelling my appearance at the conference – I cancel speaking engagements all the time – it's just that... I don't know that I want to do all this, you know? The public wedding and –" Tony made a flourish with his hand "– everything."

"Pepper is a smart lady," Steve replied. "She knows what she's doing. And she'll handle it for you. Trust her. You're not going to do any better than her."

Bruce wanted to groan – this was not the conversation he needed to come in on with a splitting headache. It made him feel even more nauseous because Steve was right. She was perfect and he was a two-faced monster, a recluse, a liability... But the unsure look on Tony's face killed. The first time he'd experienced his conversation, Bruce kept his mouth shut. Tony might have been his best friend, but Bruce knew himself well enough to know this was not an area where he could be impartial. Now, however, an echo from another lifetime rang clearly through his mind –

_"If I had the chance to do it again, I would make sure he understood how much I loved him."_

"He's right," Bruce said quietly, swallowing the bile rising in the back of his throat as he pushed down every bit of affection that was trying to force it's way out of his mouth. "She loves you – more than you know. She's the CEO of Stark Industries and you're Tony Stark – it has to be the wedding of the century."

The look of betrayal that crossed Tony's face as he turned away from him hurt – not quite as bad as the experience of being transported through time, but... The pain lingered in his gut as the doors of the elevator slid open and Iron Man's mask slid down.

It was more than simply the betrayal of a friend, however, because there was a time, once, where Bruce had nearly told him, where he couldn't bare the thought of keeping his feelings inside any longer. He had licked his lips, the words on the very edge of them when Tony had interrupted. _Maybe in another life_, he'd said, and so this betrayal was more than that. It was the betrayal of what could never be, the proverbial nail in the coffin – Bruce had admitted defeat.

And it made him a little angry that Tony got pissy over his attempt to be supportive. What did he really expect? Tony was engaged – Bruce couldn't pine over him forever. Shouldn't that be what he wanted? Wasn't that what a best friend should say? That was all they could ever be, after all. Pepper had come first and maybe he would've never pushed Tony into some huge public wedding – public affairs pretty much the last thing Bruce ever wanted – but at the same time, if there ever were a world in which he could be Tony's partner, he would never feel comfortable with Tony's publicity stunts. Pepper took them all in stride, always knew the perfect thing to say. Bruce understood not wanting something as intimate as a wedding to be broadcast across every television from here to Dubai, but really, Steve _was_ right. Pepper knew what she was doing. And she loved Tony. She wouldn't lead him astray.

Having lived through this more times than he would've liked, Bruce knew the scene. Tony forging ahead to scope out the situation at the Price Building while he and Steve arrived separately in a SHIELD vehicle. Bruce was impatient, fidgety. It made Steve nervous but he didn't care, he needed to get worked up. Because this time, he had everything sorted out. This time, he was just going take down Mister Electric before he even had a chance to launch an attack.

Already he could feel his anger building, remembering how he held Tony as he died twice in his arms and – worse – how he was already dead when he picked him up the first time. He deserved to see his wedding day and not even time itself would stop Bruce from giving him that opportunity.

He watched as Tony launched into the sky and there was the lingering feeling of dread mixed with the strange and heady desire he always felt when he watched that hunk of machinery encasing the only man who ever deserved his love launch into the sky. Such sleek intelligence and raw power. The way he felt about that left him feeling hollow, like he was really nothing more than one of his million adoring fan girls but he knew the tech inside, knew the brain that was required to create such a thing, and it was beautiful.

Now Steve was looking at him with that same skeptical look Tony had employed earlier and Bruce frowned as he forced his feet forward into the van.

"Are you okay?" he asked as they took their seats, the implication obvious – that he could stay back if he wasn't feeling up to it today.

"Yeah." The singular word came out shorter and more forceful than he'd intended but the conflicting emotions of longing and sorrow and anger boiling inside of him made his throat tight and conversation difficult.

Steve didn't look like he believed him, eyes narrowing through that blue facemask as he studied him, but Bruce was used to being scrutinized and he didn't flinch. Instead, he folded in on himself, reaching out towards the place where the Hulk resided in his mind, feeling for him, letting him know it was almost time to go, making sure he would be there when he needed him.

Everything else was exactly the same, that disconcerting feeling prevalent as they pulled up to the Price building, listened to Tony's description of the scene on the roof over the speakers, not waiting for him to finish before they headed out. Steve lead quickly, Bruce as always following and trying not to fall behind, feeling incredibly out of place in his human form amongst his superhuman colleagues, the perpetual "less than" following the "greater than."

But he focused himself with the memory of Tony's arc reactor flickering out, nothing else mattering, the heat building under his skin, tension coiling in his muscles, readying himself to release the Hulk, the ultimate greater than.

When they entered out onto the roof Tony joined them, Steve striding forward once more to stand in front like some beacon of rationality, asking Mister Electric to stand down and release the hostage.

The mutant laughed at Steve's posturing, just as he had before, but the beginning of his spiel was lost on Bruce as he drew on the Hulk, easily releasing him in the presence of the man who took away the last thing he'd dared to love. Feeling his bones crack and muscles stretch felt like power and it felt like hate and the Hulk had none of Bruce's reservations about displaying the violent nature that lurked inside of him – the Hulk _was_ that violence.

There was a moment where everything seemed as it should be, where neither Steve nor Tony nor even Mister Electric knew what was about to happen, but then it was chaos. The Hulk could hear Steve shouting at him as he charged forward, drawing on the confusion he felt at Bruce's memory of Metal Man dying and honing in only on how angry that memory made him and how the puny man in front of him killed Metal Man and Hulk knew Hulk didn't like _that_.

With giant fists he ripped the fat man in a suit away from the puny man, throwing him carelessly to the side as he crushed monstrous fingers around the frame of the puny man. And the puny man was laughing and Hulk hated that laugh, crazy and wild in a way that mimicked the inside of Hulk's head and Hulk didn't _like_ it.

"The monster knows my potential," he wheezed out, barely a whisper as Hulk's fingers compressed on his lungs and Hulk grunted, feeling a shiver of static electricity run through him, making the thick, coarse hair on his arms stand on end. "The monster knows I can make you all _hurt_."

Steve was yelling at him in his periphery and Tony laid his suited hand over Hulk's wrist, trying to get through to him but Bruce's anger ran hot and that anger was the Hulk and he didn't even look at Tony, so singular was his focus. And the puny man smiled and glanced at Tony over his shoulder before Hulk clasped his hands in the killing vice that would crush the puny man's bones and puncture his lungs.

But it was too late. Mister Electric had already attacked, drawing up the power from Tony's arc reactor far more quickly than Bruce thought he would've been able to, and whether he released it before the Hulk snuffed out his life or whether the Hulk's crushing blow let the dam break, the energy build up within the mutant discharged with that heinous thunderclap, running through everyone and everything and killing Tony, just as before.

Hulk felt lost as he held the lifeless form of the puny man in his fingers, letting him roll from them and onto the rooftop with a sickening thud. There was nothing left, no anger to sustain him, just the heartless knowledge that it didn't matter. Hulk had failed. And he turned away from the corpse, eyes searching for Tony, finding him on his knees before him, hand outstretched towards him, having collapsed from the lack of energy sustaining his heart before all the circuits in his suit fried and the arc reactor melted into the suit.

Bruce's naked knees hit the ground as the transformation from the Hulk, the repeated failure of his mission, the understanding that Tony was reaching out to the Hulk – to _him_, the fact that once more Tony was going to die right in front of him made his knees weak, too weak to support himself.

"What were you thinking?" Tony asked as Bruce's arms reached out to cradle Tony's suited body in his arms – his weak, pathetic, naked, human arms.

"I – I just wanted to fix it," he whispered, the words coming out so shaken he doubted that Tony could even understand. "I don't want you to die."

It was so much harder being human. The vulnerability was so much more intense. The feeling of helplessness totally engulfed him and the emptiness in his chest where his anger was supposed to be left a vacancy he didn't think he would ever be able to fill.

Tony chuckled a little. "Stop it. You're really ruining my moment here."

Bruce laughed too, a painful and short laugh that pierced the veil on his emotions so that tears started rolling uncontrollably down his face. And just like every time before, Tony's arm shifted ever so slightly, leaving the residue of an unfinished arc in the air meant to draw Bruce in and comfort him even though he wasn't the one dying.

"Wish I could lift this damn visor," he whispered as Bruce moved in to bury his head against his metal shoulder, not willing to let him go again, not any more ready for Tony's inevitable death than he had been the previous three times. He just wanted...

He just wanted to fucking _fix_ it. He just wanted to save him. Why was that so damn difficult? What good was building a time machine if he couldn't change time?

Bruce could hear Steve next to him, gently saying his name, his hand on his shoulder, but it didn't matter. He might not have been the one entombed in a hunk of metal, but he was effectively immobile, limbs like granite around Tony's neck – the ultimate albatross.

And although he didn't want to think it – God, _fuck_, he didn't want to think it – he had to wonder if maybe that was all be would ever be – a gravestone dragging Tony down. He wondered if there was really nothing he could do, no way to change it.

He wondered if it wouldn't be better for Tony if he just disappeared.


	5. Scene Four

**5:** _Scene Four_

* * *

As disorientating as it was to come back to his office the first time, the second was even more so. The pain hadn't lessened either, nor the headache or the fog that accompanied it. The Chinese take out was still sitting in it's place to his right, his computer screen still showing the same data he was reviewing. It was a little earlier in the day, but that was it. Not that it really mattered. He had all the time in the world – what was he going to do with more time?

It was a thought he hadn't really dared to flesh out sitting alone in the lab each night, typing up the same code he'd typed out three times now for the fourth time. Instead he distracted himself with questions about why Pepper didn't visit him in the basement in subsequent timelines the way she had in the first, how he might avoid having to reprogram this whole thing from scratch, if it were possible to go back in time far enough to leave bits of the code laying around in his computer before the day Tony died or if that was just admitting defeat before he had even tried.

But now he stared at the screen, no more enlightened than he had been before. What was he going to do? Was there anything he could say that would convince Tony to stay away?

Already he felt like crying as he buried his head in his hands. This was stupid. How many times could he return to the past just to watch Tony die over and over again? Replaying the scene in his head it seemed inconceivable that there was anything he could do or say to get Tony to listen. He felt invincible in his suit and what Bruce had to say was unbelievable and –

Oh. Damn.

Bruce ran his hands down his cheeks as he lifted his head.

Tony's suit.

It was risky, sure, and Tony was going to be pissed. It would be a violation of a part of Tony that Bruce desperately wished to see and he would wreck any chance of ever getting to. Tony wouldn't understand and he likely never would but maybe one day he would forgive him – if it worked and Bruce rendered his suits unable to be used before SHIELD contacted them. Or maybe forgiveness was too much to hope for. But at least Tony would be alive to have that choice.

He didn't remember exactly how long he had before Tony was going to walk in and so, hands trembling with anxiety, he stood and made his way from the lab to the basement.

Now, Tony had security, sure. And frankly he probably had at least one more suit than what he kept in his private lab in the basement and Bruce could only hope it wouldn't be at his disposal right now. But Bruce had access to everywhere in the tower except Tony's private suite, so great was his trust in him. To violate that trust...

Fuck. This was going to suck. Bruce took a deep breath. Running never bothered him, but now that he was part of a team, part of a – a family, so to speak... That was going to be difficult to give up. He would be lonely again. But the alternative made his throat constrict and his limbs weak and honestly, without Tony, what was left? The team had fractured completely in his initial reality, no one stayed at the tower any more, he was equally as alone as he would be when Tony discovered his betrayal.

Although not the most comforting thought it did strengthen his resolve as he walked into the private lab, taking in the mechanical equipment and prototypes laying across tables and workbenches as well as the five suits against the back wall. At least even other countries seemed to love Tony and he would still be able to catch a glimpse of him on magazine covers and newscasts from time to time. That would have to be enough.

While he often came down to play partner in Tony's hijinks while testing new suits, he'd never actually went so far as to touch any of the completed ones. It would be like... Well. There was no real comparison but he understood them to be an intensely private experience. Who Tony was in that suit was the same as who Bruce was as the Hulk. And Bruce felt extremely uncomfortable as his fingers brushed the cool metal, the sanctity of these suits and this room about to be completely destroyed by his hand.

It took him a moment to figure out the best way of disabling the suits but he got to tampering with the locking mechanism for the arc reactor and that seemed like the quickest way to go. He didn't like it – it felt altogether too similar to how Tony died – but a failure for his suit to engage around the reactor was a far cry better than the whole mechanism fusing together so that it couldn't be removed.

He was just disabling the last piece when Tony walked in, his face already set in anger, likely having been informed by JARVIS exactly what was happening in his lab before he'd arrived. And despite knowing that this was going to happen, that this was the only reasonable conclusion to this breach of trust, Bruce had to employ every ounce of his self-control to keep his blood-pressure from skyrocketing.

"What the fuck?"

Tony was clearly beyond pissed and Bruce couldn't even look at him, could only stare mournfully into the metal casing of the last suit, wishing he'd had a few more minutes to finish his tampering. This wouldn't be enough.

"I just – I want to believe I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing," Tony continued after a full ninety seconds of silence that was more unbearable than nearly any he had experienced since his childhood.

"You aren't," Bruce answered, voice wavering. God, fuck. What was he supposed to say?

"Then what is this?"

Bruce hated the hint of desperation in Tony's voice, like he wanted so badly to believe Bruce wasn't sabotaging him. Bruce hated that his explanation sounded so pathetic. Bruce hated this whole fucking thing, hated that Tony had to die, hated that he was put in the impossible position of trying to save him but –

But he didn't have a choice. He couldn't just _let_ him die. Despite his frustration and hopelessness, ultimately he always came to the same conclusion – there wasn't a world in which he would ever be okay with that option.

"You're going to die if you take a suit out today."

The words hung heavy in the space between them as Tony grappled with a reply, crossing his arms and shifting in that way he did as he attempted to accept some new piece of information into his reality. And Bruce watched on, defeated, unsure what else he was supposed to say, what else he was supposed to _do_...

"Okay." It came out all weird and sour from Tony's mouth, as if he didn't really believe he was saying it.

"There's a mutant who will draw all the power from your arc reactor and use it against you, fusing the casing shut so it can't be changed," Bruce added, visibly wincing, not really wanting to go down the same path of Tony not believing him but unsure what else he was supposed to do but _try_ to explain himself.

Tony just frowned and fuck it all – Bruce was okay with that, just watching those lips draw downwards as they faced him, eyes hard and skeptical but... Sometimes when he sat all alone in the basement re-coding a machine that ripped him through time only to watch Tony die again a little beast inside him would prod at his brain and whisper "is it worth it?" And every time he came back all his suffering was reaffirmed when he saw Tony again. It _was_ worth it. Maybe one day, a hundred thousand iterations from now it wouldn't be, maybe he would come to terms with Tony's death and move on, but now, right now – this was exactly where he wanted to be.

"And you're sure about this?"

Bruce nodded as Tony processed what he was saying, deciding that he'd done better than last time without bringing up the time machine and that maybe he shouldn't offer explanations that only made him less credible.

"I wouldn't have done this unless I was desperate," he added instead, dropping his eyes back to the suit, feeling every inch of the betrayal he had perpetrated against his best friend.

"You could've just told me," Tony sighed and Bruce could hear his hands hit the table behind him as he leaned back against it but Bruce didn't dare to look up at him, unable to believe what Tony was saying.

"Don't understand why everyone thinks I'm so damned unreasonable," he muttered and then Bruce couldn't help but grin a little, the corners of his lips tugging up despite himself.

"Couldn't have anything to do with all this?" Bruce asked, finally glancing up at him over the rim of his glasses, eyes darting around to indicate the vainglorious secret laboratory dedicated to his superhero suits.

"Look, you and Steve are the only one's here right now," Tony said after a quick eye roll instead of continuing a conversation he knew he would eventually lose. "If you think you'll be alright..."

"We will. His power has nothing against either of us," Bruce replied, trying not to let his anxiety bleed through into his voice. "You're the only one he can really hurt."

"Then I'll stay. If it would make you feel better."

Bruce released a huge sigh and let out an unfettered, genuine smile, his heart thudding in his chest, feeling optimistic for the first time in what had to amount to nearly a year since he'd started these trips back through time.

"Yeah," he grinned, "it would. It really, really would."

Tony frowned but there was a hint of a tease to it as well that Bruce easily picked up on knowing his friend so well. "Have to undo all the damage you did to my suits anyway."

Bruce laughed a little and motioned Tony over to look inside the casing. "It's really not that difficult to fix," he explained, showing Tony how to undo it as he admitted he couldn't possibly bring himself to do anything truly damaging to the suits.

Miraculously, Tony didn't ask many questions. And although he was clearly irritated by Bruce's "irrationality," he did stay back. And despite himself, despite everything Bruce knew about life and how badly it had dicked him over, he'd started to hope that this was it, he'd finally succeeded. Tony was miles away at the tower, in the basement, where he'd be safe.

And when he and Steve went to meet Mister Electric on the rooftop, the Hulk rushed to Cooper Price's defense, snatching him out of mid-air. It was flawless. The thunderclap of electricity still shook through Hulk's body but he'd rescued the man he was meant to rescue, he'd succeeded, and the swelling of Bruce's pride and elation in the back of the Hulk's existence validated him and he grinned at Steve when he came down to meet him and Steve grinned too and patted his giant arm and told him he did good.

_He did good_.

And he did, didn't he? Bruce wondered at that as they waited for a minute, waited for him to retake his human form in a corral of SHIELD vehicles, dressing and sliding into the seat beside Steve with his self-satisfied little smirk.

"What?" Steve asked, drawing his attention from the window and the indistinct radio chatter that framed his thoughts.

"Huh?" Bruce replied, blinking, as he turned to face Steve.

"It's just – this is the happiest I think I've ever seen you," he admitted with a bit of a sideways grin like he was embarrassed to be saying it but then, Bruce knew it was probably the truth. He didn't frequently smile, not like this.

"It's just nice when something works out, you know?" Bruce offered and Steve laughed, reining it in quickly when Bruce blinked at him, puzzled.

It seemed silly, he was sure, it was a simple mission, there really wasn't anywhere for there to be a complication – at least as far as Steve saw it. And that was how it should be. Bruce cautiously let himself revel in that good feeling until they made it back to the tower.

Immediately it was apparent that something was wrong. The parking lot was swamped with emergency vehicles and a feeling of dread took residence in Bruce's gut. The vehicle had hardly stopped moving before he was unlocking the doors and practically falling out of the seat on numb feet, barely registering that Steve was talking to him.

Emergency personnel were moving in and out of the building with grim faces and Bruce stumbled forward despite the looks he was receiving, everything around him seeming muted and dim. This shouldn't be happening – right? He'd – he'd succeeded. Tony wasn't there; what could've possibly happened...?

He assessed the situation quickly and found the largest number of vehicles to be towards the back end of the lot, along the secondary entrance, and he pushed his way through, hearing the arguments but then these people must've known who he was because not a single one laid a hand on him. And when he reached the epicenter, crowded around one singular ambulance, Pepper was there and she looked at him – tears streaking down her face, eyes and nose red, a look of absolute hopelessness haunting her – and he knew. He didn't know how, but he _knew_.

His mouth opened but he was sure no sound came out as he moved wordlessly forward. She held out her hand, keeping the EMS personnel at bay. Reaching for it he stepped up to her as if he were standing before the gates on judgement day, knowing with absolute certainty that his sins would be laid out before him and he would not be able to atone.

But what she said, lips trembling, was nothing he had ever expected – and everything he feared.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, eyes locked to his in a desperate bid to find some kind of footing, "I know you loved him too."

Of all the horrible things Bruce had experienced in his life – his mother's death, the accident that turned him into the freak that he was, the general ultimately removing Betty from his life forever – the soul-crushing hopelessness of this experience nearly brought him to his knees. This was something he should be able to _fix_. He was older now, he knew more, he was more capable, less depressed, he wasn't hiding, he was actively working towards a solution and he just – he just couldn't fucking _fix it_.

His eyes darted to the ambulance, to the team of people inside, to the bottoms of the black high-top Converse Tony loved so much and frequently wore even with suits, and he felt like he was going to be sick. He felt like the whole world was falling apart and that the ground was rushing up to meet him and even Pepper's hand fell from his as he desperately tried to get a grip on the flood of emotions ripping through him. He swallowed and swallowed and swallowed, trying not to be sick, and he stumbled forward a little more, having to make sure, having to be _really fucking positive_ and –

When he saw the way the team was looking at Tony's chest, packing up their equipment, equipment that wouldn't normally be used in an ambulance but then this was a special SHIELD vehicle, he knew. He knew.

Finally a sob escaped him, more like a simultaneous outcry of every ounce of his mortal coil screaming in anguish, and he felt the Hulk rising, raging against Bruce, wanting to protect him from the pain. And he felt Pepper's fingers in his hair and on his back and pulling him away and he clung to her, wailing into her chest but he couldn't even hear it, couldn't hear anything but the pounding inside his own head, his alter ego pounding pounding _pounding_ to get out and _fix this_.

But he didn't understand. Bruce couldn't fix this. Hulk couldn't fix this. Time travel couldn't fix this. Nothing – _nothing_ could fix it.

Bruce's fingers released Pepper, emotional exhaustion overwhelming him, and he pushed away, desperate to get out of here, away from the ambulance and the medical team and Pepper and the – _the body_. He couldn't contain the Hulk anymore, he couldn't do it, he was too weak, too broken, and for the first time in a long, long time – probably for the first time since he'd met Tony – he relished in the thought that he would be able to sink down into the deep dark hole that was his home in Hulk's mind and let it go, give himself over to that rage, that pain.

It felt like the only thing that he could do to do Tony any justice.


	6. Interlude

**6:** _Interlude_

* * *

Bruce stared at Pepper. His knees were tucked up to his chest on the chair and his hand moved the fork around on his plate but he never lifted it to his lips. He'd spend weeks ignoring the siren song of the time machine because what did it really matter?

He had failed absolutely and he didn't have a plan. Sure he had managed to keep Tony from the scene but later he'd learned that his car was passing by the building at the same time as the confrontation occurred. Obviously the mutant had a range that was wider than he'd anticipated or could even calculate. So – what was he supposed to do? There was no chance he was going to convince Tony to skip town – he'd had to sabotage his suits just to get him to stay away from the mission. It was hopeless – _hopeless_.

Instead he stared at Pepper. She had brought him chicken alfredo, sat with him in the basement lab, and ate in that highly deliberate manner with which she did most things. But this was different – automatic. Bruce in some ways understood her – her facade was merely a way of protecting herself from the vulnerability of her pain.

She had visited him almost every night since the funeral. Often they exchanged no words at all, barely even looking at each other but for her tight smile as she was leaving and her sad, red-rimmed eyes.

It was curious to him how in this reality she visited him. It was so different from the original and then – maybe not. He had attended the funeral, sat in the front row and watched her speech. Stood at Tony's coffin with his hand pressed into the mahogany and tried not to break down all over again as the tears rolled down his face. Wondered why he hadn't become numb to it yet, watching Tony die. Maybe the disappointment of his failures made it more poignant, more impossible to let go.

But then, she had said it, didn't she? _I know you loved him too. _The words had rattled around his skull until he couldn't stand it. Bruce had loved him, loved everything about him, one of the few people who had ever shown him unconditional acceptance, had ever suggested that it was possible that affection would be returned, even if it could only ever be in another life.

Another life. Bruce hissed at his own stupidity. You only get this one life. He was just too stupid to realize it.

Yet he'd experienced several lives now, or at least pieces of lives. The memories of them may have been fading, the similarities all blurring together, but then the differences stood out. And he remembered that it was in this life that Pepper had come to visit him for the first time since his initial trip through the time machine and that... that puzzled him. Why this time? Why now?

"Why are you here?"

The silence was deafening. He had stopped his fork over the middle of the plate and looked up at her, watching as she chewed slowly, swallowed, and with a purposeful lack of hesitation brought her eyes up to meet his.

"Having dinner." Her face remained completely neutral, nothing to give it away. "Attempting to get you to eat."

"That's not what I mean." Bruce paused and stared back at his plate. What – was he really going to ask her why she didn't visit him in realities she'd never experienced? But she was licking her lips and trying to regain composure and it didn't seem like he would need to say anything else.

"Why must you make me say it?" she asked, casting her eyes to the side and lifting a shaky fist to hold tears back ineffectively with her knuckles. "You're the only person who remembers him – the _real_ him. You're the only person who cares."

Bruce stopped moving completely, could hardly breath. Why? Why did she believe it this time? What had changed? Fuck but if only the memories didn't bleed together so badly... It was worse now that he had tried to ignore them, let time move on in this reality with no thought to going back. It was so difficult to separate the experiences.

Pepper laughed and it was painful – short and pointed and her eyes were just a little mean as they turned back to him, red and tired.

"It's so ridiculous," she said, fingers running beneath her eyes as she collected herself through the act of talking.

Bruce's brows furrowed as he stared at her in shock. How could she ever think...?

"You must know I would never have –"

"I know," she started, cutting him off as her fork moved through the alfredo with no intention of picking it up. "It's just... He showed you more of him than anyone else – well, as much as he would ever let anyone see."

Bruce looked back down at his plate. What was he supposed to say to that? Tony was the kind of man who carefully choose what parts you saw of him and what you didn't. Bruce often felt like Pepper saw more of the "real" him than anyone else.

"I'm sorry," he finally settled on, not really sure what he was apologizing for and she waved it away with her hand.

"It's – I wasn't jealous or threatened or anything," Pepper replied, pushing the plate away from herself a bit and Bruce had a feeling that this conversation turned her stomach as much as it did his. "But we fought... a lot. And sometimes, I just – I wondered if he wouldn't be happier with... with someone else."

Then Bruce laughed, shaking his head but keeping his eyes cast downward. "_That's_ ridiculous."

"Why?" Pepper asked, somehow instantly turning on the CEO, her eyes scrutinizing. "He cared about you. A lot."

Bruce just shrugged his shoulders and wished he could sink a little further into the seat, maybe disappear altogether. Maybe in the back of his mind he occasionally longed against all odds to be object of Tony's affection – but talking about it as anything more than theoretical? Well, when you held it up to the light it was an ugly desire, wrought with impossibilities, selfishness, and pain.

"You're smart and beautiful and talented and... you don't come with a _monstrous_ liability."

She clicked her tongue and shook her head and laughed a little. "You're an intelligent man, Bruce. At your age you should know you can't help who loves you – any more than you can help who you love."

Bruce snorted and looked off to the side, laying his head on his knees and hunching his shoulders protectively. "You can disabuse them of the notion."

Pepper made an indignant little noise and stood abruptly, gathering her plate and looking directly at him – though he was too much a coward to meet her gaze. "There are a lot of things I regret in my life – but if I had the chance to do it again, I would make sure he understood how much _I_ loved him, anyway."

The words haunted him long after her heels clicked out of the room and the door slid closed behind her. They were the same words she left him with before his first trip through the time machine and often he'd felt they were a cross that he was forced to martyr himself on so that she might have the opportunity to resolve her regrets.

But what of his regrets?

They seemed so small and meaningless in comparison to everyone else's but he was forced to live through them over and over until they compounded into inaction because he was totally ineffectual. And that made him angry, being ineffectual. For so much of his life he had been weak – too little and too young to stand up to his father while he beat his mother to death, too scared of what he was and how it would destroy Betty's life to fight for her. This was just another failure, another loss to add to his ever-growing collection.

Of course he wanted Tony to know how much he'd loved him – it was ridiculous to think otherwise. All of his life he had been silently screaming it at people the way he had Tony, taught from a young age that that which he loved would eventually be taken away so he shouldn't admit it, shouldn't let the cruel world know.

Even then it was true what he'd said – he was a liability and Pepper wasn't. Pepper was safe. Pepper loved him. Pepper was the CEO of Stark Industries and he was Tony Stark – it couldn't be any more fairytale than that.

Bruce swallowed back a pitiful cry as he pressed his face against his knees, holding them tightly, because the fact was – none of it mattered. Tony was dead. Tony was just as dead now as he was a year ago when Bruce started on this venture. Months spent building and rebuilding time machines and constructing possible ways to keep him alive meant nothing. Tony was never going to see his wedding, Pepper was never going to get the chance to prove her love for him and neither would he. You only get this one life and apparently you couldn't change it as much as Bruce wanted to believe.

So... what was stopping him?

The thought hit him like a sledgehammer and he fought to control the pounding of his heart as the Hulk sprinted through his veins, begging to be let out to combat this overload of emotion – but there was nothing to fight. Nothing but his own frustration at taking so long to see the unrealized truth. Pepper regretted her inability to show Tony her affection because she was hindered by her ignorance – but Bruce was not limited by the same ignorance. He had the knowledge and foresight bestowed upon him by time travel. Bruce knew Tony was going to die – he died every time – and yet still he didn't say anything, didn't try to fix the one thing that was within his control to fix. And why not? What did it matter? Wasn't it better to let Tony know unequivocally how he felt about him while he still could?

Oh it was selfish, so selfish, he told himself, but there were no consequences – at least, none that mattered. In the end Tony would be dead. Even if it meant nothing to Tony to know how Bruce felt about him, at least he wouldn't have to live with the regret of never having said it while he was still alive. He couldn't spare Pepper that pain, but at least he wouldn't have to sit here with his knees drawn to his chest alone in the dark. At least he would know that he did all that he could.

The finality of the decision brought him an instantaneous peace, calming the inner storm inside himself in a way that no amount of yogi training had ever managed. Maybe he couldn't find it within himself to smile but he felt a sense of liberation knowing that he would no longer have to live with the burden of the whole of his unexpressed emotion for the other man. Truthfully the weight of a life's worth of regret would not be lightened much by this one confession but in that moment, it felt to Bruce like it might.

He stood and quietly crossed the room to sit before the bank of monitors he knew so well, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly before he pulled up the programs he needed to start over again for the fifth ime.

_Maybe in another life, _Tony had said. But there was only one life, there was only this life – and Tony's was cut short. Bruce had spent a lot of time wishing for a different life – it was time he stopped wishing for another life and taking advantage of the one he had.


	7. Scene Five, Part One

**7:** _Scene Five, Part 1_

Bruce blinked and held his breath against the pain, gripping the table as he tried to get his bearings though he was temporarily blinded by the metaphorical knife of time travel slicing through his brain. But the feeling of the lacquer under his hands was familiar and when his vision faded back in he realized he was in Tony's extravagant office, not his own lab, and the memory of the rather ordinary night before Tony's death came back to him suddenly.

As his mind shuffled through the memory it occurred to him that he had been pouring himself a drink at the bar and he stared down at the soda container and the short tumbler filled with ice and he knew it was going to be obvious to Tony that something was wrong as he attempted to get the strength back in his knees so that he could let go of the bar.

Tony's voice had trailed off and Bruce felt his presence to his left before he managed to loosen his hands and turn his head to look over at the other man, hovering near his shoulder with not entirely misplaced concern. Bruce met his eyes, so rich and warm, and knew the concern was genuinely for him – not that he would go colossal and smash the place up. No – with Tony it was never about the Hulk. It was always about _him_.

"Are you okay?"

His voice was soft and laden with worry and Bruce's mouth went dry. This was it... right? He thought that maybe he should ask for some aspirin or something, make up some bullshit excuse to buy himself a little more time, but then... Hadn't he had enough time? Tony was right _there_, so close Bruce could touch him. So close Bruce could smell his cologne and the undeniable masculinity that was Tony Stark. So close he could see the way his face was aging yet only made him more handsome, the way his lips were set firm and creased in concern, feel the physical pull of his presence and the magnetic draw that was always there, always dragging him closer.

And although he wasn't sure he could say it – not then, so unprepared and off balance from the experience of moving through time, so used to burying those feelings down where no one could see them – when he opened his mouth, the words fell breathlessly out.

"I'm completely in love with you."

And unfortunately, being so close to Tony, Bruce could easily see the way his facade crumpled for a moment – his eyebrows twitching together in confusion, his lips falling into a frown – before he smoothed it all out into a neutral expression as he took a step back.

"That's a little out of left field."

Tony's voice sounded rough and he coughed a bit, obviously trying to cover his embarrassment and Bruce accepted that, although it still hurt a little. Over the months it took him to rebuild the time machine he had prepared himself for every eventuality, every possible reaction. This was, by far, not the worst.

"I'm sorry," he replied, eyes falling back to his cup and the ice, the open soda container. "I know you know but... I just had to say it."

Tony sighed and leaned his hip against the bar, crossing his arms casually over his chest, and Bruce could feel those eyes on him, studying him, trying to pick him apart like a machine and figure out why – why say it now?

"I'm getting married," Tony said at last and Bruce chuckled just slightly as he closed the cap on the soda, hesitating a moment before turning sad eyes and a sad smile back to Tony, feeling remarkably undaunted given the circumstances.

"I know." He shrugged, could see the confusion on Tony's face. "I would never want you to leave Pepper, that's not..." Bruce stalled out, unsure of how to explain why he had to say it when there was really no way to explain. "I just had to say it."

"But I _told_ you," Tony returned, anger tinging his words. It took Bruce by surprise and he stared at Tony, momentarily unsure.

"I'm not real good at this," Bruce said. "It's just... things are changing and I needed you to know."

"But _why_?" Tony pressed, his eyes hard, making Bruce uncomfortable and he realized that this was a lot easier in his own mind.

Bruce swallowed, fist clenching the glass a little too hard. It wasn't that confrontation bothered him, it was just that it rarely ended well for him. And though he wracked his brain for something to say, something to explain to him why, after years of working alongside each other, he felt the need to say it now, that wasn't a lie – because Tony would tear it apart – and that wasn't the truth – because Tony would never believe it – there was only one thing he could think of to say, a phrase that had haunted him for over a year now. And he hated himself for it.

"There are a lot of things in my life I regret," Bruce started, feeling his chest constrict with every word, "and I don't want not letting you know how much I love you to be one of them."

Tony rarely looked stunned but in that moment, he did. And Tony didn't really recover, either, the silence stretching between them like a void that Bruce wondered if he could ever fill, even with the depth of all of his emotion. But, predictably, Bruce supposed, he would never get the chance to find out.

Instead, Tony just dropped his eyes, ran his hands back through his hair, shook his head and turned his back, walking away with a muttered "I can't fucking deal with this right now." And Bruce stared after him, wounded despite how stupid it seemed to feel that way. What was he expecting, really? He knew the likelihood that Tony would respond favorably was less than marginal – after all, Tony had specifically told him not to say it the only other time Bruce had tried.

Still, though, Bruce stared after him even after he disappeared from view, the door to his office swinging shut, feeling the lack of Tony's presence intimately. That was it. He was gone. Maybe they would see each other tomorrow, before well... before his death. But then it would be over. Again. And Bruce wondered if it would be worth it to build the machine again, try to tell him in a different way, but...

_God, fucking idiot_, he chastised himself. There was no other outcome. He had to get over this obsession. It was sick, it was fucked. Tony had to die and he had to accept it – he had to. So fuck – why did this hurt _so bad_? Every time. Maybe one day he would get used to the rejection. Maybe he would –

But then the door opened again, so hard the hinges groaned in protest and Bruce stared in shock as Tony stood there – lips drawn tight, eyes fierce, mission written all over his face. And Bruce tried to open his mouth, tried to say something, an apology, anything to appease the other man as his blood pressure spiked and he fought to control the fearful part of him that didn't know what Tony was going to do as he strode forward, purpose driven and angry. And he tried to back up but he was pinned into the bar and Tony was there so suddenly – Tony with all his magnitude, all his intensity, right up against him – and he lay his hands on either side of Bruce's face, stared him straight in the eyes and then –

And then he kissed him. His eyes fell closed though Bruce stared in shock at long lashes as Tony's lips met his own and for a brief moment he couldn't even appreciate it, could only stand there, frozen, until Tony's pride couldn't take another second of not being kissed back and he started to draw away but – but if that was all Bruce was ever going to get then he wasn't going to waste it.

He placed a hand on the back of Tony's neck and pulled him forward again, closing his own eyes and melting into the kiss until their bodies were completely aligned, tongues tangled and breathless and fuck but it was _perfect_. It was everything Bruce had ever imagined kissing Tony would be – fiery and passionate and methodical and _perfect_. And when finally Tony pulled away for real Bruce's fingers twisted in his shirt, wanting selfishly to hold him there, to keep him there. This was so much worse now, knowing that he was going to die.

"Tony," he breathed, feeling awkward and prepubescent and stupid and madly in fucking love in a way he had only ever gotten the chance to experience once before and he wanted to savor it and he wanted to hold on to it forever but – he had to let it go. Even if Tony wasn't going to die tomorrow, Tony still wasn't his.

Bruce made his fingers let go, made himself let Tony go, his hands fall to his sides but Tony's hands were still on his neck, a thumb running across his jaw and he smiled this awkward, lopsided half-smile that was entirely too endearing and Bruce wanted that memory forever because as soon as it was there, it was gone, replaced by a sad little frown.

"I have to get my head straight," he said, and Bruce nodded, reaching up to touch one of Tony's hands just briefly before they fell from where they had framed his face.

"I'm sorry," he said but it didn't matter, Tony's eyes were still sad – so sad. And he took one final look at him, full of pain and regret, before he turned and left for the second time.

And though Bruce had been alone so many times in his life, it had been a long time since he had felt loneliness like that.


	8. Scene Five, Part Two

**8:** _Scene Five, Part Two_

Bruce spent most of the morning holed up in his office, waiting for Tony to come down, just like he had before. But as time passed, painfully slow, he eventually realized he must have changed their existence too dramatically and that Tony wasn't coming. Not now. And that made him wonder... Where was Tony?

Although he was sure Tony was merely avoiding him and prepping for his meeting with Venture United or whatever, he still found himself compelled enough to ask JARVIS. And when JARVIS told him Tony wasn't in the building, he spent fifteen minutes fidgeting in his seat until his curiosity got the better of him.

He really didn't _want_ to go to her, he didn't, not after he shamelessly appropriated her line the night before and might have done irreparable damage to their relationship – but he reminded himself that this was all temporary... as horrible as that thought was.

Still Bruce collected his breath as he knocked on Pepper's door, sighing with relief at her standard directive to come in and shoving his hands in his pockets so he wouldn't give away how nervous he was.

Pepper looked perfectly calm and put together – as usual – and she finished up whatever she was doing on the computer before looking up at him and smiling. The relief he felt at that simple smile was more than he could express. Tony couldn't have told her – right?

"Hi Bruce," she said, voice warm and full of professional curiosity. "Can I help you?"

"H-have you seen Tony?" he asked, mouth suddenly dry, and her face immediately fell into an attempt to mask her irritation as Bruce's stomach flip-flopped.

"He's on a plane to Geneva," she said, blowing out a sigh and turning back to her computer.

Bruce stared, shell-shocked. Tony was... He _what_? He wasn't even _here_? That terrible tendril of hope rose from his gut though Bruce knew better than to believe it would do anything more than strangle him again.

"Why?" The question came before he could stop it and he hated the way Pepper's face tightened but he didn't regret asking it. He _needed_ to know.

"Some conference on theoretical elements," she said, pausing to wave a hand but not looking up from the screen. "He promised he'd be here and now I have to either cancel our meetings tomorrow with the wedding planner and photographer or go to them myself – as usual."

Suddenly she looked up, a guarded look in her eyes that made Bruce more uncomfortable than he thought possible given how uncomfortable he already felt. "Is it selfish for me to want him to be interested in this wedding?"

Bruce frowned, feeling guilty. If he hadn't confessed to Tony then Tony _would_ be there to go with her but... he would also most certainly be dead. This was the closest he'd come to avoiding that so – was it better? Definitely. But he couldn't tell Pepper that. So what could he say?

Somewhere in the back of his mind, blending in the mesh of memories of the repetitious same few months he'd accumulated over the past year, he remembered a look of betrayal and Tony saying that he wasn't sure he wanted to have a public wedding at all.

"No. I think..." – God he hated himself for what he was about to say – "I think you deserve someone who is interested in your wedding."

Pepper's frown deepened and he knew what she must think and it hurt – he didn't want to take Tony away from her. He didn't, really. _Fuck_ – things were so much easier when he wasn't friends with anyone, when he didn't get emotionally involved.

"And Tony might not ever be that person."

That was the truth, wasn't it? It didn't have to do with him, Tony and Pepper just were fundamentally different people. Right? He'd always thought that, always wondered how they made it work because Bruce didn't really believe love conquered all – he tended to believe that love got you killed – but somehow they did it, somehow there was some truth there.

Pepper sighed and rubbed her forehead, disrupting her perfectly placed hair. "I –"

"But he loves you," Bruce continued, cutting her off, watching her eyes fall back to him, deadpan and tired. "I know he loves you. So just... don't give up on him."

She tried to smile but it was weary, run down, and he saw the way her fingers massaged the back of her neck. "Thanks."

Bruce tried to smile back but it must've been equally as forced. At least he felt there was nothing left to say and he nodded his head a little goodbye before turning desperately towards the door only to hear her voice call his name once more when he reached it.

He turned his head back to look at her and she was already buried in her computer again. All business.

"There was a power fluctuation in the arc reactor downstairs – would you mind taking a look at it?"

So he went to the basement to look at the arc reactor. Just as Tony had. And there was no discernable issue, as he'd expected. Then he was called up to meet Steve. Everything was the same except Tony was a thousand miles away, far outside Mister Electric's reach. And there was that hope, that tiny little bit of hope.

"The two of us shouldn't be a problem, huh?" Steve teased him with a casual smack to the shoulder and Bruce kind of grinned and kind of choked on it as he agreed, prepping himself for the scene he knew was coming.

And the scene was the same – Mister Electric with CEO Price held hostage – except that immediately he was agitated, scanning him and Steve and the sky, looking for something.

"No Tony Stark?" he asked, a half-cocked grin on his face that was only partially effective, betraying the frustration he felt. "No _Iron Man_? Scared of a little electricity?"

"You get us or you get nothing," Steve answered deftly and the mutant twisted the ropes that bound Price's wrists a little in irritation, obviously causing the man pain. "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

"He thinks he's better than me?" The words were sharp and measured and Bruce could feel Hulk watching, their mutual unease mounting and growing in Bruce's gut until Hulk was almost unstoppable. "That's the thing about people like you – everyone loves you. You don't know what it's like to try and try and try and never get anywhere, never have anyone care about you!"

Tony wasn't there but the memories overlapped and built, the fear multiplying like a tangible thing and he knew what was coming – even if Tony wasn't here, at the very least his boss was going to take an unfortunate dive off the roof – and so Bruce let Hulk come, taking a backseat to his larger than life alter ego.

" – he's always thought he was better than me, rejecting my applications, my patents, my work," Mister Electric was saying once Hulk could focus, although it just made him impatient and agitated, feeling the weakness and false bravado in the little man's spiel as he huffed a breath. "Does he think he knows more about electricity than me – than _me_?"

Hulk didn't care for what he was saying but he was watching the way Mister Electric's hands twisted on the rope and there in the back of his brain he had the vision of the mutant hauling the man to the edge of the building and throwing him over. He knew what was coming and it bothered Hulk on a base level that the mutant seemed to be wholly unafraid of him and so he closed the distance between them with frightening speed, only a few monstrous steps, and he ripped the CEO from the mutant's hands, lifting the mutant up to his face and blowing out hot air in intimidation.

Then Hulk was confused because the puny man was laughing and he remembered holding him like this before and it was disorienting. Hell Bruce often felt disoriented thanks to the experience of time travel – of course it was disorienting to the Hulk. And he hated the way that man laughed, all crazy and unrestrained. It made the Hulk feel crazy too and his hands tightened a little and he shook him a little, trying to get him to stop.

Flag man was yelling something at him but the puny man was talking too and there was something about it that made the Hulk afraid – or more accurately it made Bruce afraid and the Hulk didn't like that – didn't fucking like that _at all_.

"Ah but the monster knows my potential," he huffed and the Hulk grunted, feeling a shiver of static electricity that made the hair on his arms stand on end.

"Doctor Banner, Stark's favorite little pet. I was passed over for a _monster_," he continued in obvious disgust as Flag Man demanded in the background that the Hulk set him down and let him be apprehended properly before the Hulk hurt him – but the Hulk wasn't sure yet if he wanted to hurt him or not. "Iron Man might not be here, but I know how to make him _hurt_."

Then he lay his hands on either side of the Hulk's head and the pain was excruciating. The Hulk rarely experienced pain – or rather, he rarely felt the pain he experienced. Rage protected him from it, forcing himself through anything painful by focusing on destroying it, destroying anything that might hurt him and Bruce. It was his purpose, his whole existence – he was meant to eradicate pain – but this? This was something else.

The Hulk was completely immobilized by it and even Bruce felt it, screaming in anguish with a voiceless Hulk as a thousand volts of electricity ran straight through his body. He couldn't think he couldn't move he couldn't fucking _breathe_ and his knees buckled beneath him, sending eight hundred pounds of dead weight straight into the roof of the building, shattering it as he fell.

He hit the roof with an unceremonious thud and all his eyes could process was red and his skin felt like it was on fire or maybe it was melting – Bruce had no words to associate with the feeling and the Hulk had never felt anything like it before, the intensity more than he could bare, brain blanking out into nothing as he lay there, simply trying to exist. But everything hurt _everything hurt_ and he wasn't sure wasn't sure wasn't sure...

Bruce had retreated so far inside the Hulk to avoid the pain – it hurt like _he_ hurt and never never _never_ did he want to feel pain like that _again_ – that there was nothing – nothing. Nothing but the Hulk staring with dead eyes, empty. And he didn't know how long he lay there, neither of them cared, but then the red changed somehow and it hurt – _fuck _it still hurt – but it was better, a little. There was gold too, laying on the roof with him, face to face, and it was like all the life was pumped straight back into him when he realized – _Metal Man_.

But there was something strange and something terrible about that and his heart started pounding so hard, so so hard, and Bruce was waking up and Bruce was screaming how how how _howhowhow – !_

"Too late." The words were muffled and weird and the Hulk could barely understand them and Bruce had no patience to listen because fuck – what was Tony doing there? _What was he doing there?_ "I'm too late."

But it wasn't like before – was it? His visor was lifting and there was Tony's face and the Hulk tried to speak but he couldn't move his lips at all and the only sound he made was this pathetically soft groan and even that felt like hell. Metal Man reached out to touch him but held back at the last moment and there was something wrong... something wrong because his face was wet and the Hulk knew that something was wrong.

"I shouldn't have left, I'm too late."

Metal Man's voice was shaking and the Hulk could barely understand him but it didn't matter, really. He just wanted to close his eyes...

"I'm sorry, fuck, I'm sorry, I – I'll fix it, I'll fix this."

The Hulk wanted to laugh – Metal Man always try to fix – but he couldn't even move and damn – he was just tired. So fucking tired and it hurt, it hurt so much.

"I'm not even sure if you can hear me buddy but – but I should've told you, I should've told you yesterday, I shouldn't have run away."

Metal Man talked so much, always so much, talk talk talk _talk_ and Hulk? Hulk wanted to _sleep_.

"I love you."

He was crying now, crying hard but Bruce wasn't there and Bruce couldn't tell him what that meant – why crying? Why would Metal Man cry? Metal Man hurt too?

"Fucking shit, _I love you Bruce_."

But Bruce wasn't there. And Hulk just wanted to sleep.


	9. Epilogue

**9:** _Epilogue_

"Tony... _Tony_!" Bruce gasped, feeling his abs tense, Hulk right there on the surface, nearly uncontainable. "You – you have to slow down."

Tony paused and drew himself up on his knees, bringing Bruce's hips with him in his hands, and stared down at him, sweaty hair falling into his eyes in a way Bruce would never tire of seeing.

"Baby," he admonished, panting just a little, the tip of his pink tongue resting on his lower lip as he breathed in through his mouth. "I can't go much slower than that."

There was a minute where they just stared at each other and it was so ridiculous in light of everything he had been through that Bruce couldn't help laughing. And then Tony was laughing and oh god it had been over a year but Bruce was never going to take the sound of that laughter for granted – not ever.

Tony fell back down on top of him with a sloppy kiss to his neck as he moved back into him slowly and Bruce could hardly breathe. He was just – he was just so _happy_. He'd done it – Tony had lived to see his wedding day and though it had been a spur of the moment thing, no rings or ceremonies or anything but a piece of paper left in the car, it was even more than he'd ever hoped.

"I told you – I'm going to _fuck_ my _husband_." Tony's whisper teased his ear as he rolled his hips and Bruce's eyes rolled back as he fought to maintain control.

But Tony knew how tenuous Bruce's control of the Hulk had been since the incident on top of the Price building and so he was careful, knew how far he could tease. Hulk and Bruce were closer than ever to one another now – the electric current from the incident fucking with their relationship. It had taken over four hours for Bruce to recover from the shock well enough to reclaim his body and then when he had the impression of the incident was like an unhealable scar and Hulk was jumpy – always on the verge of slipping out.

"Yes – _slowly_," Bruce teased back, nudging his nose across Tony's face for a kiss.

The guilt had dissipated over time but then, in moments like this, when he was happier than he ever thought he could be, he would look at Tony and he would think – would Pepper have been this happy, too? Did he take that from her? But the break up had been long and drawn out, involved counseling and everything, and Pepper had seemed happier now than she had in the months leading up to when they'd called off the wedding. And she never treated him any differently for it – even when it became increasingly obvious that he and Tony were becoming a "thing" – a fact for which Bruce was incredibly thankful.

"Next time," Tony panted as he moved his hips slowly, methodically, "you get to do all the work and I'll just lay there."

Bruce laughed again as he hooked a leg around Tony's hip and twisted, turning them onto their sides, brushing the backs of his fingers alongside Tony's cheek and watching the way his lips moved to follow them.

He helped move Tony along, slowly, legs wrapped around Tony's waist, tensing and untensing so that their hips rocked against one another. Flighty, open-mouthed kisses were exchanged as the tension built and Tony's hand working his dick was too much. Bruce felt it, the pull, the draw that would send him over the edge and he felt the Hulk there and it made his head swim and he whimpered, clutching ineffectively at Tony's sweaty biceps to ground him in this moment as his eyes slammed shut and he came across Tony's stomach.

Tony moaned and thrust in hard – or as hard as he could in that relatively shallow position – once, twice, and then he was coming as well, whispering a litany of affection in Bruce's ear as he kissed at it, tired and spent.

For a long time they lay against one another, Tony's hand moving lazily through Bruce's hair until he was on the verge of falling asleep just like that – a rare feat for him, but he was tired and the Hulk was sedated now as well – when Tony whispered out a soft "sorry."

Bruce chuckled a little but grew serious quickly as he opened his eyes, trying in vain to read Tony's guarded expression. "For what?"

"For not being there," he replied, quietly, clearly aggitated. "For running off. For letting you face that mutant alone. I should've been there for you – you won't be dealing with the affects of it now if I had stayed. If I had a time machine I'd –"

"Please don't say that," Bruce cut him off, feeling his throat constrict with the very thought of it.

He had tried to bury those experiences over the past year, pretend they didn't happen and never think about them again but they all came rushing back in moments like these. And he could never tell Tony, not really. It was a burden he had to bare alone – happily, to have Tony alive, it was worth it, but still. There were no words to say how much he never wanted Tony to feel that way, how much he appreciated what they had now.

"It's the truth," Tony replied, hand tightening in Bruce's hair for just a moment and Bruce wished he'd just shut up for once. "If I could do it over again, knowing what I know now –"

"No," Bruce replied very definitively. "I wouldn't want you to. Imagine how much worse it could've been if you were there – he would've killed you."

Tony snorted but fuck – he wasn't invincible, Bruce knew that. Convincing him was another story. But struggling to control the Hulk was an incredibly small price to pay for Tony's life. He would never really understand that but Bruce would. He promised himself that he would never forget.

"There is nothing I would change," he continued, nuzzling his face up against Tony's neck. "We only have one life – and this one is perfect."


End file.
